Proud to be a Southerner!

Sure, I love the South, for ALL of its history and heritage… it’s my history… it’s my heritage.

But, to be proud of Southern heritage in connection with the war years between 1861-1865, what does that mean, exactly?

Let’s keep it simple today…

It means an ability to remain conscious of the fact that to be “Southern”, of “Southern ancestry”, or proclaiming “Southern heritage” is not simple, but complex.

It means a need to remain conscious of the fact that Southern does not alone equal “Confederate”, but is inclusive of… the story of the Confederate soldier… the Confederate-supporting civilian… the slave… the free black… the Southern Unionist… the Southerner in Union blue… and the leave-aloners… of varied races… of varied religious views… of various political views… diverse in views pertaining to what it meant to be a citizen of the United States both before and after secession was realized, and etc., etc., etc.

If you only accept a limited few in the above list as equating to what it means to be a Southerner… well, your opinion doesn’t matter, because…

ONLY the combination of all of these people make-up THE story of Southerners in that war… not a minority or majority of those who were Southern.

Therefore, entertaining the notion that anything and everything contrary to the ideology of the Lost Cause equates to “South-bashing”… well, that’s just silly… and, in reality, only “in defense” of part of the story of Southerners at war.

As you proclaim pride in the South… are you being selective or all-inclusive?

Southerners should not be defined by the Civil War, and certainly one should not confuse southerner and Confederate. Southern history and heritage is so much more than that, and if it includes the history of slavery (as does the North), it also includes the story of Dr. King. It also includes so much more than that.

I agree…wholeheartedly. Four years does not define the South or Southerners… then, or now. Yet, there are those who insist that those four years are critical in defining the Southerner, and these same people continue to be limited in their ability to understand what it meant to be a Southerner at that point in time. If they can’t fathom what it meant to be a Southerner within the confines of four years, can they really fathom the greater picture?

A question I started to ask after a previous entry here (and one that I’ve thought about posing and exploring elsewhere) – what does “Southern” (or Southerner) mean? Is it all based on geography of birth? Or is it a mindset that anybody can have? Is it both? Does it include heritage (or can someone be a 1st-generation Southerner?)

I like how you offer many examples of different types of Southerners and perhaps that answers my question – perhaps there is not one true definition of “Southerner” but even if so, that concept does not seem to be popularly accepted.

Is it an “in the eye of the beholder” idea? Again, though, I don’t believe that is how it is generally viewed by the public. To me, it seems like the term is usually used to refer to a combination geography of birth/residence, heritage and lifestyle. And it is often, in fact, used in connection with “Confederate” which, as has been pointed out, should not be accurate.

Robert – when you refer to yourself as a Southerner, what does that mean to you?

You are correct… the true definition of Southern… the diverse definition… is not popularly accepted. Frankly, that’s where, I think, Southern heritage organizations miss an opportunity. Problem is, they can’t be honest with themselves and their own heritage, among themselves… first.

Being Southern, to me, is about people in a place, developed on a culture that is unique to that place… and that place and the people in that place don’t necessarily embody THE SOUTH, but part of the South… a locality that happens to be south of the Mason-Dixon line… although, not terribly far south of the line. This might be a good time to bring in a phrase Craig Swain tossed my way a while back… Southern pluralism. Southern is not defined in terms of a wide brush stroke. It is more accurately defined in pluralistic terms. The elements that are unique to my “Southerness”, for example, may not be those with which Craig identifies (we’ve gone back and forth joking about a difference in foodways, for example). The common tie between us is that we are both from “down under”, in localities in the South.

Locality makes up the foundations of my being Southern, my understanding of being Southern, but a connection to something greater is never lost in that.

I seem to recall one of those “checkout line” magazines some time back named “Southern Living” or such. On the masthead, for yearly subscription information, it said something like “Southern states $14.95. All others $19.95.” I submit that is the metric best used to define a Southerner.

I wonder what it is in the human psyche that causes men and women to reduce themselves and their history–along with the history of other men and women–to simplistic terms.

The south was, and is, such a diverse region that it is almost illogical to attempt to characterize the history of the south as a single narrative with fixed themes.

I find this with “Native American” history, too, my two areas of interest being the history of the south and the history of Indigenous men and women. Outside of professional historians, there seems to be a tendency to think of “Indian” history as a narrative sewn from a single cloth, when in fact, there are millions of threads that make up that cloth–over five hundred nations at one time–not one of those nations alike, then or now. Thinking of Indigenous men and women, and of their history, as a block, or as one, or as a whole, has much more to do with the men and women examining Indigenous history in relation to their own history than it does with Indigenous history itself, and generally those men and women examining the history are white men and women.

Having a little trouble explaining what I mean, so I will close. I just finished linking to a Library of Virginia website from Kevin‘s blog, and just feel a great sense of grief over it all. So much death, so much destruction, so much hatred…I know….There’s no crying in history or baseball…It is just overwhelming at times. Such a waste.

Hi Sherree. The post was prompted by my frustration with some who continue to talk about “Southern-bashing” when they need to narrow things down… significantly. But then, I suppose it would sound silly to say “only the soldiers who were die-hard Confederates-bashing”. The reality of it is, however, that this is what it boils down to. If Southerners who identify with the South through the Civil War… and Confederate-supporters only… are they really able to comprehend the complexities of the South… at all? I’m not sure, but this might be another way of asking about not being able to see the forest for the trees thing.

To answer the question that you pose: no, I don’t think that those who identify with the south through the Civil War, and specifically through the Lost Cause view of the Civil War, do understand the complexity of the history of the south, and, perhaps, they don’t even want to. I understand your frustration, and I share that frustration. The exchange that prompted this post was exasperating. I feel quite certain that Dr. King would not have identified with Confederate heritage groups.

I am equally frustrated that the history of the relationship of the US army to Indigenous men and women prior to, during, and after the Civil War is not widely understood and acknowledged. On reservations, present conditions of extreme poverty are directly connected to that relationship. I just received the following link from a woman who is Cree, who is my friend, and whose parents and grandparents attended residential schools in Canada, many of which copied the US model for those schools:

Concerning the information in this article—whether or not climate change is the issue is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is that third world conditions do exist on many reservations where the descendants of the oldest inhabitants of this land live, and this has everything to do with how the past is remembered–everything.

It is the same for many African American men and women. So, I personally have little patience for either the Lost Cause view of the Civil War of some white southerners, or for the “we saved African American men and women” narrative of some white northerners and others. If the majority of white northerners transcended their time and not only freed the slaves, but saw African American men and women as equals (as we know is not the case but seems to be a perception that is quite common) then most did not apply that same moral imperative to Indigenous men and women as the nation expanded into the west. And white southerners? The history of Reconstruction does tell the story, as the old power structure reasserted itself, south and west. Besides, Andrew Jackson had already taken care of the “Indian problem” east of the Mississippi.

I will say that there are some who were in the way who had a genuine right to say this exact thing. There were those who went to war with intense thoughts regarding the abolition of slavery, even before the war “became” more about that. Of course, the problem is that this “cause” became adopted over the years as the blanketing cause of the Union.

It is and/or would be extremely difficult for some of these folks to swallow, to think that there were actually Unionists (civilian and soldiers) who were tied to slavery… in both the upper and lower South.

There’s much to be learned and I hope that the crumb trail left on the Web, in various open-minded pieces placed there during the next four years, assists in expanding a better understanding of the complexities.

Yes. There were those who were true abolitionists and who gave their lives to bring about the end of slavery. There were also those who did transcend their time. Yet, there were many who did not transcend their time, as well.

In examining the argument that southern states seceded based upon the principle of protecting states’ rights, David Blight asks in one of his lectures, “states’ rights for what”? The answer to that question is pretty straightforward (for most men and women, that is)–states’ rights in order to protect and expand the institution of slavery.

As the Civil War progressed, the abolition of slavery became the major goal of the Union. The same question should be asked, and has been asked concerning abolition: the abolition of slavery for what? Because slavery was immoral? Was that how most white northerners thought? We know that many did, but did everyone? The majority? Because slave labor made it more difficult for white laborers? How many men and women thought this? And further, once emancipation was achieved, how were African American men and women who were once slaves to be introduced into society? We know what happened in the south. Terror ensued. How about in the north? Even in the best of circumstances, African American men and women had to become white men and women, in essence, in order to be considered responsible citizens by white men and women of the era. Now, enter the Plains Nations and Indigenous men and women–they had to become white men and women, too–conquered first; their land taken second; and “assimilated” next–and that is why war broke out. This has become an all too familiar pattern. It happened in the east and south, too. It is still happening. We, as Americans, seem to believe that other people want to be us, need to be us, should be us. So, when we ask what does it mean to be a southerner, we should also ask what does it mean to be an American. What does it mean? As always, Robert, thank you. Each interaction on your blog is educational and constructive.

I have a question – it doesn’t necessarily pertain to this post – but here it is:
Earlier this week, the newspaper here ran a story about Elder John Cline (his home has been purchased by a Brethren/Mennonite group). The story said Cline was shot and killed by “Confederate irregulars.” What were Confederate irregulars?
I’ve read other stories about Cline that tend to dance around the details of his death…he “died” during the Civil War. Did he fall off his horse? Or he was killed during the CW. Wounded in battle?
Cline was a non-combatant, a minister. Has anyone called it murder?
I am proud to be a Southerner, proud to be a Shenandoah Valley native. I would be more proud if we could come to terms with the darker side of our history.

Dan, slip on over to my Southern Unionists blog. You’ll find the story of Elder Kline there. To call them irregulars is to play it safe… they may have been regulars, but having killed a man of the cloth, it may have changed to irregulars as to make it look not as bad on the regular troops.

[…] will point to the Confederate experience as that defining the south. I think Robert deconstructed that well when he wrote last month that – Southern does not alone equal “Confederate”, but is inclusive […]